Tag: love

Our culture is doing everything it can to make the word sin obsolete, and some days it seems like they have succeeded. Even many Christians use Matthew 7:1 as an excuse not to mention sin at all. While they may have made the word obsolete, they can do nothing to the concept.

There are natural consequences for sin, even if they don’t believe in God, we should be willing and able to point out the natural consequences all the sins, sexual sin is the most pervasive and common sins today. A short tryst can ruin lives, in many different ways, including by disease, long before the AIDS crisis, there were Hepatitis B, and C, Syphilis (which can lead to serious damage to the brain and the nervous system; mental deterioration; loss of balance, vision, and sensation; leg pain; and heart disease, and other issues), other side effects of sexual sins are the break down of the family which leads to a host of possible negative effects to the children who lose at least partial contact with a beloved parent, cases where spouses have snapped and murdered both their cheating spouse and the person they cheated with. I could go on and on about the horrors that we bring into this world when we sin against God’s word.

When we choose to ignore sin, or even worse applaud the sins that have trapped people in its clutches, we may save their hurt feelings for a while, but we unleash a multitude of other hurts that are killing society by refusing to call sin what it is! While the word sin may be out of fashion, it’s effects are just as tragic as ever! Keeping our mouths shut about it doesn’t help a bit!

Share this:

Like this:

The world would be a better place if more of us were willing to live life like he did.

St. Damien of Molokai, also called Father Damien, original name Joseph de Veuster, (born January 3, 1840, Tremelo, Belgium—died April 15, 1889, Molokai, Hawaii [U.S.]; canonized October 11, 2009; feast day May 10), Belgian priest who devoted his life to missionary work among the Hawaiian lepers and became a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.

Share this:

Like this:

One of the reasons that we should all read more of the Bible is that cults across this planet are
tearing lives apart. It is within the pages of the Bible that our pastors don’t tell us to read, that
we find out the difference between real Christian Shepards and wolves in sheep’s clothing.

People in cults need us to study the Bible and pray so that we can lead them
away from the wolves, and into the arms of their loving savior.

Amber Sawyer was just 8 years old when it happened.She was watching cartoons on the living room floor of her Mississippi home when she heard the bang.She went to investigate and found her 21-year-old sister, Donna, dead in her bed. She had shot herself in the heart with their father’s hunting rifle weeks after being excommunicated by their church for getting engaged to a non-Jehovah’s Witness.For Sawyer — who sat on the bedroom floor near her sister’s body for hours that day, waiting for her mother to come home from her door-to-door missionary work — it was the beginning of a long, painful journey that would one day tear her family apart.
Years later, Sawyer got excommunicated, too, after seeking a divorce from an abusive husband. She ended up leaving the husband — and the faith. Her family cut all ties. “Jehovah’s Witness kids grow up knowing that if they ever mess up, their parents will leave them — and that’s scary,” Sawyer, now 38, said in a recent interview from her home in Pascagoula, Miss. “The shunning is supposed to make us miss them so much that we’ll come back. … It didn’t work.”

Share this:

Like this:

This six-year-old boy has every right to be sad and sulky, but he chooses to bring smiles to people instead. Giving away toys from the local dollar store isn’t that expensive either. It is the giving of the heart that matters to most. We all can and should do more.

Share this:

Like this:

The question “How are you doing?” in one form or another probably gets asked about a billion times a day. Many of the times it is asked, it is asked by a stranger. It could be by a cashier at the grocery store, or someone else who has been told by their boss to ask it to all their customers, or just said in passing by the average person. Do we ever really sincerely ask that question, or is it just a cultural convention? This question was given to me years ago when I was at a local event. I walked into a tent that was being used as a store, and in passing, I asked the shopkeeper how he was doing. His reply was “Terrible!” I had been so used to asking this question as a cultural convention, that I almost didn’t hear the answer. When I realized that his answer wasn’t what I expected, I stopped in my tracks to talk to him. It turned out that he wasn’t doing terrible after all, he only said that as a test to see if anyone was listening or even caring. He thanked me for being the only one out of the many states he visited to actually pay attention to his reply!!!

Now I know that we can’t always truly mean the question, if we are on the clock, or running late to pick up a child from school, we just don’t have time to properly listen and to help, but when we do we should pay attention to the answer. If we can, we should help people who truly are not doing well. We can ask their name and pray for them, offer to buy them a cup of coffee, anything just to prove to the person that the world isn’t as ugly as it may seem in the moment. The smallest act of kindness can change lives. I have even heard stories about people who intended to commit suicide who were stopped by a simple act of kindness.

Share this:

Like this:

We tend to think of heroes as characters in comic strips, and movies, but anyone can be a hero!
Addie Rodriguez is a cheerleader at her school in a tough spot. Her squad was supposed to do a routine that involved their fathers. Her problem was that her dad is in the military, and could not make it. Along came Matthew Garcia…

Notice that he had not exactly had a good day, after already having done a good deed that week (donating blood), a deed that may have cost him a slot in the state finals he went to see his mom who was watching the game at Addie’s school, where he saw yet another opportunity to be a hero to someone. Few would blame a teenager for being a little self-absorbed in a moment like that, but no, he saw someone in need and did what he could do to save the day. For his actions, he deserves the title HERO!

_____________________________
I mentioned earlier that most people think of comic book characters when they think of heroes, some have a wider definition that includes the military, police officers, firefighters, but janitors can be heroes too.

Not everyone can save the world, but we all can change someone’s world!

Share this:

Like this:

“Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.” ~Brennan Manning

“Perhaps, if you weren’t so busy regarding my shortcomings, you’d find that I do possess redeeming qualities, discreet as they may be. I quietly carry the burdens of others as though they were my own. And I say ‘I’m sorry’ when you don’t. I am not without fault, but I am not without goodness either.” ~Richelle E. Goodrich

“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater, you realize that you’ve been missing the whole point of the ocean.” ~Dave Barry

“To love a man enough to help him, you have to forfeit the warm, self-righteous glow that comes from judging.” ~Ron Hall